BEIRUT: Daesh on Tuesday abducted 19 people, mostly civilians, in the centre of war-torn Syria, the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said.
The extremists attacked regime forces in the Badia desert, before kidnapping eight policemen and 11 civilians from a small village.
Syria’s state news agency SANA said the extremists had taken “a number of inhabitants” from the village of Al-Saan in Hama province, after they went looking for truffles, fungi used in cooking.
Others were wounded and taken to hospital, it said.
Daesh fighters have ramped up their attacks in the past months against regime forces in the vast desert that stretches across central Syria to the eastern border with Iraq.
They have abducted civilians, shepherds and soldiers, Observatory head Rami Abdel Rahman said.
“Those abducted are usually killed, especially if they are members of the regime forces,” he said.
He added the kidnapping was the largest by the jihadists since they lost the last scrap of their cross-border proto-state in 2019.
Daesh overran large swathes of Syria and neighbouring Iraq in 2014.
They were expelled from their last patch of territory in eastern Syria in March 2019, but have retained a presence in the vast Badia desert.
In 2018, Daesh abducted around 30 people, mostly women and children, from the Syrian province of Sweida after it went on a deadly rampage butchering 250 people. Several of those abducted were killed.
Daesh abducts 19 in Syria, says human rights monitor
https://arab.news/rmecr
Daesh abducts 19 in Syria, says human rights monitor
- Daesh fighters have ramped up their attacks in the past months against regime forces
Israel police to deploy around Al-Aqsa for Ramadan, Palestinians report curbs
- The Al-Aqsa compound is a central symbol of Palestinian identity and also a frequent flashpoint
JERUSALEM: Israeli police said Monday that they would deploy in force around the Al-Aqsa Mosque during the Muslim holy month of Ramadan, which begins this week, as Palestinian officials accused Israel of imposing restrictions at the compound.
Over the course of the month of fasting and prayer, hundreds of thousands of Palestinians traditionally attend prayers at Al-Aqsa — Islam’s third-holiest site, located in east Jerusalem, which Israel captured in 1967 and later annexed.
Arad Braverman, a senior Jerusalem police officer, said forces would be deployed “day and night” across the compound, known to Jews as the Temple Mount, and in the surrounding area.
He said thousands of police would also be on duty for Friday prayers, which draw the largest crowds of Muslim worshippers.
Braverman said police had recommended issuing 10,000 permits for Palestinians from the occupied West Bank, who require special permission to enter Jerusalem.
He did not say whether age limits would apply, adding that the final number of people would be decided by the government.
The Palestinian Jerusalem Governorate said in a separate statement it had been informed that permits would again be restricted to men over 55 and women over 50, mirroring last year’s criteria.
It said Israeli authorities had blocked the Islamic Waqf — the Jordanian?run body administering the site — from carrying out routine preparations, including installing shade structures and setting up temporary medical clinics.
A Waqf source confirmed the restrictions and said 33 of its employees had been barred from entering the compound in the week before Ramadan.
The Al-Aqsa compound is a central symbol of Palestinian identity and also a frequent flashpoint.
Under long?standing arrangements, Jews may visit the compound — which they revere as the site of their second temple, destroyed by the Romans in 70 AD — but they are not permitted to pray there.
Israel says it is committed to maintaining this status quo, though Palestinians fear it is being eroded.
Braverman reiterated Monday that no changes were planned.
In recent years, a growing number of Jewish ultranationalists have challenged the prayer ban, including far?right politician Itamar Ben-Gvir, who prayed at the site while serving as national security minister in 2024 and 2025.
